Making Your Own Eco-Friendly Cleaners

Did you know that you can easily make your own cleaners that are not only better for the environment but also work well, while being safer for you, your kids and your pets, too?  Let’s look at some basic, easy-to-make eco-friendly cleaners.

All you need are a few ingredients you likely already have around your house, and a few spray bottles plus, some sort of writing instrument to label the bottles. 

Wash Your Windows

In a spray bottle, mix 2 cups of water with 3 tablespoons white vinegar.  You can use old newspaper as your cloth to wash the window, or use a squeegee. The vinegar smell will disappear quickly and your windows (or any glass surface) will look sparkly and shiny.

Disinfect

If you have surfaces that need to be disinfected, such as cutting boards and toilets, you can easily create that yourself in a spray bottle.  Just mix 2 cups of water with four drops of any type of natural soap, like unscented liquid castile soap, and 10 to 15 drops of tea tree oil.  You can spray this on any surface you want to disinfect and let sit for a few minutes, then wipe down with a soft cloth.

Toilet Cleaner

Pour ½ cup of white vinegar straight into your toilet bowl, swirl around and scrub with your toilet bowl scrubber, then let sit for ten minutes.  Clean the rest of the toilet with the disinfectant above, letting the cleaner sit to work before wiping it down with a washable cloth.

Oven Cleaner

Most people have self-cleaning ovens but you may still need to clean up some stains, and oven cleaner is known to be very dangerous and toxic.  Thankfully, all you need to do is pour salt onto spills while they’re still warm. When the oven is cool, you can wipe it out with a damp soft cloth.

Kill Mold

Mold can be very dangerous for you and your kids, so you don’t ever want to let mold gets started or continue growing once it does start.  Set up a sprayer with 2 cups of water and four drops of tea tree oil. Anyplace that could get mold needs to be washed with this substance at least every couple of weeks. Just spray it on the surface, let sit for a couple minutes, then wipe off with a dry cloth.

Baby Wipes

You might need to buy really good quality paper towels or have reusable cloths.  Use a container like a large coffee ground container.  Cut the paper towel roll in half or cut your cloths to size.  Then, in the container, mix together 2 cups of distilled water, 1 TBS each of aloe vera, olive oil, witch hazel, and liquid castile soap.  Add oil from 2 Vitamin E capsules.

If your child doesn’t have allergies, you can even add some essential oils in the smell that you like.  Just add about five drops. Take the two halves of paper towels and unroll them, but make them into an "accordion" as you fold them so that you can easily pull off one towel at a time to wipe the baby. You can check the fold before adding them to the liquid in the container. Seal and flip over so that the towels soak up all the liquid. Keep sealed between uses.

These cleaners are easy to make and for the most part, include ingredients that you probably have in your home already.  By ditching the toxic chemicals you can help save the environment, your children’s skin, and money by making your own.

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